July 2015

07/25/2015

It was the end of term at Kirkkojarvi Comprehensive School in Espoo, a sprawling suburb west of Helsinki, when Kari Louhivuori, a veteran teacher and the school’s principal, decided to try something extreme—by Finnish standards. One of his sixth-grade students, a Kosovo-Albanian boy, had drifted far off the learning grid, resisting his teacher’s best efforts. The school’s team of special educators—including a social worker, a nurse and a psychologist—convinced Louhivuori that laziness was not to blame. So he decided to hold the boy back a year, a measure so rare in Finland it’s practically obsolete.

Finland has vastly improved in reading, math and science literacy over the past decade in large part because its teachers are trusted to do whatever it takes to turn young lives around. This 13-year-old, Besart Kabashi, received something akin to royal tutoring.

“I took Besart on that year as my private student,” Louhivuori told me in his office, which boasted a Beatles “Yellow Submarine” poster on the wall and an electric guitar in the closet. When Besart was not studying science, geography and math, he was parked next to Louhivuori’s desk at the front of his class of 9- and 10-year- olds, cracking open books from a tall stack, slowly reading one, then another, then devouring them by the dozens.

By the end of the year, the son of Kosovo war refugees had conquered his adopted country’s vowel-rich language and arrived at the realization that he could, in fact, learn.

Years later, a 20-year-old Besart showed up at Kirkkojarvi’s Christmas party with a bottle of Cognac and a big grin. “You helped me,” he told his former teacher. Besart had opened his own car repair firm and a cleaning company.

“No big fuss,” Louhivuori told me. “This is what we do every day, prepare kids for life.”

This tale of a single rescued child hints at some of the reasons for the tiny Nordic nation’s staggering record of education success, a phenomenon that has inspired, baffled and even irked many of America’s parents and educators. Finnish schooling became an unlikely hot topic after the 2010 documentary film Waiting for “Superman” contrasted it with America’s troubled public schools.

“Whatever it takes” is an attitude that drives not just Kirkkojarvi’s 30 teachers, but most of Finland’s 62,000 educators in 3,500 schools from Lapland to Turku—professionals selected from the top 10 percent of the nation’s graduates to earn a required master’s degree in education. Many schools are small enough so that teachers know every student. If one method fails, teachers consult with colleagues to try something else.

They seem to relish the challenges. Nearly 30 percent of Finland’s children receive some kind of special help during their first nine years of school. The school where Louhivuori teaches served 240 first through ninth graders last year; and in contrast with Finland’s reputation for ethnic homogeneity, more than half of its 150 elementary-level students are immigrants—from Somalia, Iraq, Russia, Bangladesh, Estonia and Ethiopia, among other nations.

“Children from wealthy families with lots of education can be taught by stupid teachers,” Louhivuori said, smiling. “We try to catch the weak students. It’s deep in our thinking.”

07/22/2015

The weaknesses in Thailand's education system are well documented, with O-Nets, Pisa, Timms and World Bank reports all highlighting Thailand's lack of progress and the urgency with which reforms are needed. These reports have also emphasised the gross educational inequalities which disadvantage students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, rural areas and ethnic minorities.

Some authorities appear aware of the system's inadequacies, with education improvement having been made a national priority in 2012, aiming to raise standards by 2015.

The Thai National Commission for Unesco at the Ministry of Education recently touted the country's achievements in a report. It paints an optimistic picture of administrative, teaching and learning progress but neglects to provide evidence of actual achievements.

Admittedly, education reform is a monumental task. Research indicates it can take six years to achieve successful change in a secondary school and eight years within a school district. Nevertheless, the past decade has seen a number of developed and developing countries dramatically improve their education systems.

However, before initiating reform, a country must develop a precise definition of success. As the 21st century progresses, nations are adapting their definitions. East Asian nations, including Taiwan and Japan, are recognising the importance of developing creativity and individualism to drive entrepreneurism and innovation. Since 2001 Japan has begun "westernising" its definition, embracing individualism, divergent thinking and independence.

Meanwhile, Thailand is stuck in the middle-income trap, and the current focus on race-based nationalism in social studies and history suggests that educational success is recognised by loyalty and respect, not survival in the global knowledge economy.

If Thailand can learn from Japan's experience and prioritise innovative and critical-thinking skills, school environments will need to radically adapt. The present curriculum rewards conformity and discourages individualism. This is barren ground for creativity and instead encourages submissive behaviour and a "culture of silence" — an inability to critically assess society and its problems, obstructing the main point of education: the improvement of society.

Thai authorities would benefit from examining educationally successful countries. Finland has been the subject of much attention following the country's arrival in the Pisa Top 10. The Finnish system has made impressive progress, but while education policies can be shared, the context and cultural dimensions that enable success are more difficult to emulate.

The Finnish education system has fundamental differences to the Thai system that would require a seismic shift in policies, attitudes and resources to realise. These include small schools and class sizes; long-term commitment to teacher quality; long-term capacity-building strategies; equal opportunities for all irrespective of location, gender, socio-economic background or cultural background; teacher autonomy; and the abolition of national assessments.

Another important factor in Finland's success is the country's decentralisation and an increase in school autonomy - a common feature of countries that have successfully reformed. Thailand's education suffers from a centralised top-down leadership and a fragmented education ministry consisting of quasi-independent, extremely territorial commissions. All previous reforms have failed to negotiate this bureaucracy.

Moreover, European and American students are reaching higher standards while spending up to 400 hours less time than Thai students in school. And while European and American educators engage in debates over the advantages of specialisation or breadth, Thai students remain overloaded by a system that attempts both.

The dismal results highlight the chronic systemic faults, only made worse by the "no-fail policy", with high school graduates averaging less than 50% in the English, mathematics, science and social studies multiple-choice O-Net exams, themselves almost meaningless.

Finland’s education model has been scrutinised with great interest by other countries, not only for what it has done in the past, but what it is about to do in 2016 when it unveils “a different kind of education” and introduces “teaching by topic”.

As of 2016, students aged seven to 16-years-old will undergo at least one extended class of multi-disciplinary, phenomenon-based teaching and learning. The rationale behind Finland’s radical education reforms is to build on its already world-class education system.

Currently, only a small handful of Asian countries such as Singapore and China outperform Finland in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings.

Under the plan, schools will have the freedom to decide the length of each class so as to not interfere too much with their existing programs.

Helsinki’s development manager, Pasi Silander, told The Independent that a “different kind of education” was needed to prepare students for life after school.

“What we need now is a different kind of education to prepare people for working life,” Silander said.

“Young people use quite advanced computers. In the past the banks had lots of bank clerks totting up figures but now that has totally changed. We therefore have to make the changes in education that are necessary for industry and modern society.”

This is a consideration that has certainly not been lost on our leaders here in Australia.

Recent reports showing a sharp rise in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) jobs prompted the Federal Government to commit $12m to increase student uptake of STEM subjects in primary and secondary schools.

Dr Benjamin Jones, an adjunct research fellow at the University of Western Sydney (UWS), believes that while following Finland’s example can help modernise our education system, equal effort must be made to ensure that it is fair.

The crucial difference between Finland and Australia, Jones said, is that the Finnish system has “remarkable consistency across schools” and there is little variation between students from low and high socio-economic areas.

“There is much Australia can learn from Finland if it wants to also be a world leader in education,” Jones wrote.

“It is imperative, however, that we move beyond the empty slogans of ‘clever country’ and ‘education revolution’ and put in place systems that will allow all Australians to have access to high quality education.

“If Australia is to maintain its prosperity into the future, we should look to the Finnish example and ensure our education system is not only high quality but fair.”

07/05/2015

By making parental choice the cornerstone of its education system, Ireland is following a “lazy”, market-based strategy which is likely to produce greater inequalities and poorer learning outcomes, renowned educational expert Pasi Sahlberg has said.

Addressing a Department of Education policy seminar in Dublin, the Finnish scholar said “either you are serious about equality” or you rely on parental choice “and you just hope that this will somehow create good things”.

The latter was “a clear sign of a lazy or reluctant education policy: If you don’t know what you are doing you say ‘Let’s expand parents’ choice’ ”.

“If you want to have a more equity-based system, that requires very systematic and deliberate policy by the Government,” he said.

Equality does not materialise at local level by accident, said Dr Sahlberg, a visiting professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

A best-selling author who has advised governments around the world on the Finnish educational model, Dr Sahlberg said there were two models of education taking hold internationally: one was more “masculine”, market-based and focused on competition and choice; the other was more “feminine”, and concentrated on equity, creativity and decentralising authority, as in Finland.

Swedish ill-effects

He noted Sweden had moved towards a parental-choice model, with ill-effects in terms of educational outcomes.

The results elsewhere “are not very convincing”, he added. In contrast, Finland abolished private schools more than 40 years ago and now tops international school performance tables.

Other speakers at the seminar, including Maynooth University deputy president Prof Aidan Mulkeen, questioned whether Ireland was really committed to equality in education.

It was no good policy makers promoting equity if Irish society had not “bought into” it, he said.

Prof Dympna Devine, head of UCD school of education, said education was still considered a “private” good, and asked why schools still depended so much on volunteerism if education was regarded as crucial to society.

TUI general secretary John MacGabhann expressed concern about the effects of the new drive towards parental choice in school patronage.

‘Middle-class option’

He said choice was “largely a middle-class option”, and the impact could be seen in an area like Firhouse, where two new schools were being created - one for Educate Together and the other a Gaelscoil - on playing fields that were once used by the whole community.

The development “will facilitate a choice for a particular segment of Irish society”, but the community “feels it has been robbed blind” of a much-loved facility, he added.